Journal of the Effective Schools Project, Volume 17, 2010 Page: 7
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responsibility, it is essential that
you as the instructional leader,
help them come up with a clear
plan for how they will work to ac-
complish the vision within their
sphere of responsibility and influ-
ence. For example, it is helpful for
each teacher to ask and answer the
following questions to guide them
in the planning process.
1. What will they do differently?
2. How will their behaviors im-
pact students?
3. What data will they track?
4. What benchmarks will they
meet?
5. How will they know that they
are successful?
6. What will they do when they
encounter difficulty?
7. How often will they check in?
8. Who will hold them account-
able?
Engage teachers in conversations
throughout the process. As teach-
ers begin implementing their plans,
it's important to check in fre-
quently and engage them in strate-
gic conversations that move them
towards greater and greater fidelity
to the vision and successful imple-
mentation of effective strategies.
You, as an effective leader, can
use these conversations to help
teachers make connections be-
tween their choices and student
outcomes, commitments to adopt a
course of action, corrections to
their instructional delivery and/or
strategies, or changes in their
choices that will best benefit their
students. These conversations
needn't be long - often a 5 minute
check in between classes or a
quick chat on the walk to the park-
ing lot at the end of the day will
suffice. But, every exchange
should strategically focus teachers
on instruction, invite teacher re-flection, and supportively but
firmly move teachers to greater
effectiveness.[1]
Show respect for teachers' efforts
and provide feedback on their
strategies rather than them. Re-
member, to be an effective leader,
your feedback should never be
personal. Rather, your feedback
focused on the strategies, not indi-
vidual teachers themselves. Spe-
cifically, feedback should be cen-
tered around individual prefer-
ences or even personal values, i.e.,
your job as an instructional leader
is to help teachers see how the
choices they make affect their indi-
vidual and the school's collective
ability to realize the vision of stu-
dent achievement and success. Do-
ing so is not only supportive; it
empowers teachers to make better
instructional choices in the future.
When there are setbacks, discuss
the mistakes and help teachers
learn from them. If you are lead-
ing a school truly bent on student
learning and success, mistakes will
be made. How you as the instruc-
tional leader react to those mis-
takes will determine whether your
school moves to greater success or
whether it devolves into finger
pointing, excuses, and safe strate-
gies that have little or no impact on
students' learning. It is imperative
that you help your teachers learn
from their mistakes and also that
you be willing to learn along side
them. Therefore it is important
that you reflect with them on what
decisions led to the mistake, why it
was a mistake, what you can learn
from the mistake, and what steps
you, the teacher, and the institution
can take to prevent future prob-
lems. Some of the richest learning
you and your teachers will encoun-
ter will come from this process.Give teachers the
space and support to
implement a new practice
or strategy before being
evaluated on it.
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Tarleton State University. Effective Schools Project. Journal of the Effective Schools Project, Volume 17, 2010, periodical, 2010; Stephenville, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth201693/m1/9/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Tarleton State University.